

























Abstract
The problem of suffering which is connected with the 
problem of theodicy, has to do with why a good God would 
permit humans to undergo physical, mental and spiritual 
afictions. Human suffering, which is an indisputable 
fact of human existence that raises many questions, 
remains a mystery. Why is there suffering and what is the 
purpose of suffering? What should be the attitude of man 
to suffering? Kierkegaard sees suffering as essential in 
the life of man in order for him to actualize his potential. 
His treatment of suffering is of great importance in 
understanding the role of suffering in human existence. 
This essay attempts to approach suffering from the 

thKierkegaardian perspective.  Kierkegaard, a 19  century 
Danish philosopher and existentialist thinker, sees 
suffering as the essential expression of the existential 
pathos which the religious individual understands as 
something essential. Suffering, which is a dying to 
immediacy, is an essential expression of the relationship 
to the Absolute. The religious person is one who is 
reected inward and understands suffering as essential 
and is ready to confront it in all its ramications. This 
approach to suffering has the capacity of encouraging an 
individual to face all of life's dangers, to embark joyfully 

EXPLORING THE THEME OF SUFFERING 

IN SOREN KIERKEGAARD'S PHILOSOPHY

Benedict EGBUCHUNAM
Department of Philosophy

Seminary of All Saints, Uhiele-Ekpoma.

emechunam@yahoo.com



upon the necessary challenges of life and to cultivate a 
positive attitude to suffering.

Keywords: Suffering, Immediacy, Essential, Absolute, Existential, 
Pathos.

Introduction
Suffering is an unavoidable mystery of human existence. It is seen by 
some as something evil that comes to those who have 'bad luck' or to 
bad people. It is natural that human beings should shy away from 
suffering and from anything that will cause pain. However, it is an 
undisputable fact that suffering is a part and parcel of human 
existence. But the question is: why is there suffering? What is its 
purpose? What should be the attitude of humans to suffering?
 A proper and adequate knowledge of what suffering is and its 
role has the capacity of encouraging an individual to face all of life's 
dangers, to embark joyfully upon the necessary challenges of life and 
to derive benets from a positive approach to suffering. To this end, 
Kierkegaard's treatment of suffering is of great importance in 
understanding the role of suffering in our lives.
 This essay, therefore, attempts to expose Kierkegaard's view 
on suffering as the essential expression for existential pathos; as an 
expression of a religious view of life in contradistinction to fortune 
and misfortune as the expression of an aesthetic view of life. To 
achieve this, this essay would have an overview of suffering. Then, 
Kierkegaard's view on existence and the stages of life after which his 
treatment on suffering would follow and the bulk of what 
Kierkegaard says on suffering would be taken from his work, 
Concluding Unscientic Postscript.

 An overview of suffering
The term suffering is sometimes used in the narrow sense of physical 
pain, but more often it refers to mental or emotional pain, or more to 
pain in the broad sense, that is, to any unpleasant feeling, emotion or 
sensation. The term pain usually refers to physical pain, but it is also a 
common synonym of suffering. The terms pain and suffering are 

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 35



sometimes used together in different ways. For instance, they may 
either be used as interchangeable synonyms or they may be used in 
contradistinction to one another as in "pain is physical, suffering is 
mental", or "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional". Sometimes, 
they are used to dene each other, as in "pain is physical suffering", or 

1
"suffering is severe physical or mental pain"
 Suffering occurs commonly in the lives of sentient beings in 
diverse manners. It is the presence of pain, displeasure, and other 
forms of anguish: physical or spiritual, in a given person or sentient 

2 being. One thing is clear and that is the fact that it is the subject – the 
human person – who suffers. Of course, the lower animals do 
undergo suffering (physical pain) but what differentiates the human 
person from lower animals is on the level of consciousness. Only the 

3suffering human being knows that he  is suffering and wonders why; 
and he suffers in a humanly speaking still deeper way if he does not 

4
nd a satisfactory answer.  It has been said that the high-level 
capacities of memory, anticipation, and conscience, which gives rise 
to the human experience of suffering as distinct from the experience 
of physical pain, is lacking in lower animals, which live wholly in the 

5 
present.
 The eld of human suffering is much wider, more varied, and 
multi-dimensional. Man suffers in a variety of ways not always 
considered by medicine, not even in its most advanced 
specializations. Suffering is something which is still wider than 
sickness, more complex and at the same time still more deeply rooted 

6in humanity itself.  In day-to-day human experience, we are faced 
with various types of suffering and evil. Pantaleon Iroegbu makes a 

 1  “Suffering”, in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffering, 2010.
2Pantaleon Iroegbu, Kpim of Predicaments, Ibadan: Hope Publications, 2004, 31.
 3The terms ‘man’, ‘he’, ‘him’ and so on is used here occasionally in a generic sense 
to avoid making the work cumbersome. It does not, in any way, denote disrespect or 
disregard for the female gender.
4John Paul II, The Christian Meaning of Human Suffering (Salvici Doloris, 

thApostolic Letter), 11  February, 1984. no. 9.
5J. Bukovsky, “Suffering”, The New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13, ed. Rev. W. J. 
McDonald et al, Washington: The Catholic University, 1967,  775.
6John Paul II, Salvici Doloris . . . ,  no. 5.   

36 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



difference between evil and suffering. He says that evil is generally a 
lack of being or acting that should be there in a being while suffering 
involves some anguish, pain or displeasure on the part of the victim. 
While all suffering is evil, not all evil is suffering in the strict sense of 
the presence of pain, anguish or displeasure. In other words, there are 
various types of evil some of which may entail suffering and others 

7not.
 According to Etienne Borne, suffering is not 'immediately 
given' in human consciousness. It does not have the simple character 
of sensation or pleasure. It raises questions as soon as it is present in 
the one suffering and feeds that self-reection peculiar to the human 
mind. He says that there is a distinction between the different forms of 
suffering. The rst kind of suffering could be called work or labour 
(suffering in work). This is when pain is the means to a worthwhile 
end, that is, it has meaning beyond it. It creates a kind of division or 
alienation within the human person. This is the most fundamental 
dimension of interiority and it is at the origin of technical activity and 
properly human actions. In “suffering in work”, suffering assumes a 
mediating role; it can be seen in the light of a comforting truth. Here 
the pain of the road is incurable and is part of the journeying. But its 

8justication lies in the destination and in the happiness of arriving.  
 There is also suffering of anguish, which occurs in the 
meeting point with absolute misfortune when one must bear the 
unbearable. For example, the death of a loved one, the triumphant 
persecution of the innocent etc. In this type of suffering, which 
natural reason cannot give a 'means-end' explanation, we are inicted 
with 'obtuse evidence' of their meaninglessness. Suffering, which 
comes from our own faults, has two faces. At one time, a moral and 
intelligent action may mediatize the suffering, that is, the evil, which 
makes one evil, is changed by the person into repentance, which 
puries. At other times, the evil is irreparable and the remorse, which 
turns into anguish, is unconquerable by heroism and wisdom natural 

7Iroegbu, op.cit., p. 32-33.
8Etienne Borne, “The Meaning and Meaninglessness of Suffering”, Philosophy 
Today, vol. 1, (June, 1957), no. 2/4,  100.

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 37



9
to man.
 Relative suffering, in which the search for meaning is 
rewarded, and absolute suffering, whose meaning escapes us, 
inuence one another with the latter infecting the former. There is an 
undened area between the two where the hope of nding meaning is 
always mingled with fear of meaninglessness. There is an 
obtuseness, the lling of shadows even when it is evident that pain is 
necessary for humans and can serve a good purpose. It would seem 
that suffering of any kind destroys something of goodness and truth 
such that it becomes subject to reason by 'constraint and violence'. In 
suffering, there seems to be a sure sign of death and both seem 
impossible to mediatize, that is, it seem impossible to nd meaning in 

10
both.
 In whatever form it takes, suffering is indeed a passion for 
humans. It is “an ordeal, imposed by fate or circumstances, which 
neither will nor reason can completely dominate and conquer” and it 
brings to the heart of an individual “a mixture of exaltation and 

 11blindness and bafing light.”
 A question that comes to mind is: if God is both willing and 
able to prevent evil, then why is there evil and suffering in the world? 
The problem of suffering is connected with the problem of theodicy, 
or why the just God allows evil in the world. Why would a good God 
permit man to undergo physical, mental and spiritual afictions? This 
constitutes on one hand, the objection to God's existence by atheists 
like David Hume, who gives positive reasons for rejecting a theistic 
deity,  and on the other hand, a challenge to the believer whose faith in 

12
God is severely tested by trials.
 At a deep human level, human suffering is a mystery before 
which scientic and most philosophical systems are either silent or 
without adequate answers. The mystery of suffering lies not in its 
existence which is obvious, nor in the fact that it can be painful and 
that we seek to avoid it nor does it lie in the fact that it can be 

9Ibid.
10Ibid.
11Ibid.
12Bukovsky, “Suffering”, The New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13 . . . ,  775.

38 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



necessary and even redemptive for our experience may show this to 
13 

be true. Our persistent which shows that we are staring at a mystery.  
According to Pope John Paul II:

“Within each form of suffering endured by man, and at the 
same time at the basis of the whole world of suffering, 
there inevitably arises the question: Why? It is a question 
about the cause, the reason, and equally, about the 
purpose of suffering, and, in brief, a question about its 
meaning. Not only does it accompany human suffering, 
but it seems even to determine its human content, what 

14
makes suffering precisely human suffering.”

In considering suffering, it would be discovered that it reveals the 
polarity existing between the exterior and interior self, the puzzled 
way in which one is stretched between the world of nature and spirit. 
Substantial unity becomes so difcult to understand that one can only 

15call it a mystery.
 Suffering is an enigmatic fact which challenges every world 
view. No suffering is a simple physical reality. There is always that 
resistance, the effort to ignore or scape, to discover its causes. Man 
tries as much as possible to seek solutions to human suffering or nd 
ways of doing away with it. But it ends up being a futile exercise. This 
is not to discredit those who seek ways to reduce human suffering or 
to say that we should not seek solutions to human problems. But as 
Pope John Paul II says:

“Seeking new and effective ways to alleviate suffering is 
a valid quest, but suffering nevertheless remains a 
fundamental fact of human life. In a way, it is as deep as 
man himself and touches upon his very essence. Medical 

13H. C. Bradley, The Mystery of Suffering, http://www.Sju:edu/campus_ministry/ 
Newsletter/CNL033003.htm. 
14Pope John Paul II, Salvici Doloris . .  . , no. 9.
15Borne, art.cit.,  100.

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 39



research and treatment neither wholly explains nor fully 
overcomes suffering. In its depth and its so many forms it 
needs to be considered from a perspective, which 

16transcends the merely physical.”
 

Suffering as suffering is obviously an evil. Suffering for the sake of 
suffering is an antithesis of goodness and to that extent it is 

17
existentially a hollow in the order of reality.  But what is the source of 
evil? If there is evil, then something is missing that ought to be there, 
in God or in the world and that is perfection. Why would a perfect 
God make an imperfect world - a world in which there is suffering 
and death? It is at this point that we now turn to Kierkegaard whose 
view on suffering would be understood in the light of his idea on 
existence and the stages of life. 
 
The Concept of Existence in KierKegaard's Philosophy
The term existence constitutes the foundational structure of 
Kierkegaard's philosophy. His career was a self-conscious revolt 
against abstract thought which Hegel's system was noted for. For 
Kierkegaard, existence, which is a specically human category, can 
have two senses. He made a distinction between the spectator and the 
actor. He says that the spectator can be said to exist in the sense of 
inert or inactive things. But the term existence does not apply 
properly to these whether they are spectators or stones. It is only the 
actor that is involved in existence. The act of existing, which is a 
striving, is both pathetic and comic.  Existence, for Kierkegaard, is 
the “child that is born of the innite and the nite, the eternal and the 

18
temporal, and is therefore a constant striving.”  According to 
Kierkegaard,

The self is the conscious synthesis of innitude 

16Pope John Paul II, The Christian Response to Suffering (Message of the Holy 
Father for the World Day of the Sick for the Year 2002), cf., http://www.wf-
f.org/02-1-Christian Suffering.html. Emphasis is mine.
 17Iroegbu,, op.cit.,  43.
18Soren, Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientic Postscript, Princeton: Princeton 
University Press, 1941,  84. 

40 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



and nitude, which relates itself to itself, whose 
task is to become itself, a task which can be 
performed only by means of a relationship to God. 
But to become oneself is to become concrete. But 
to become concrete means neither to become 
nite nor innite, for that which is to become 

19concrete is a synthesis.

For Kierkegaard, the search for truth may be pursued either in an 
objective or in a subjective manner. Objective reection consists in 
an abstraction from the subject and his subjective interest such that 
truth becomes subjectively indifferent. While in subjective 
reection, the task is to interpenetrate the subjectivity of the inquirer 
with thought that the inwardness thus developed may be a truth that is 
relevant to existing human beings. The highest task that is proposed 
to every human being is the task of becoming subjective just as the 
highest reward, which is an eternal happiness, exists only for those 
who are subjective or rather, comes into being for the individual who 
becomes subjective. The subjective thinker is a dialectician dealing 
with the existential and he has the passion of thought requisite for 
holding fast to the qualitative disjunction for the existential dialectic, 
which moves within three spheres of life: aesthetic, ethical and 
religious, is a movement in the direction of decisive choice and 
fullness of life and is relevant to an individual who confronts the 

20future as an active participant in life.
 Kierkegaard makes a distinction between what man now is, 
that is, his existential condition and what he ought to be, that is, his 
essential condition. He says that there is a movement in the life of 
man from his essential to existential condition; a movement from 
essence to existence. According to Kierkegaard, man's anxiety over 
his nitude is the cause of his estrangement from his essential being. 

19Soren, Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 
1954, 162-163.
20D. F. Swenson, Something About Kierkegaard, Minneapolis: Augsburg 
Publishing House, 1941, 117-119.

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 41



Man's essential nature entails his relation to God, the Innite Being. 
His existential condition is a consequence of his alienation from God. 
And a person's alienation and despair is further compounded if his 
actions drive him further from God. There is in man a dynamic drive, 
which this alienation creates, to recover his essential self. And it is in 
describing this dynamic movement that Kierkegaard speaks of the 

21stages on life's way.
 Kierkegaard builds his theory of the stages, which he believes 
“embraces all possibilities of human existence,” on the fact that man 
is a synthesis of the nite and innite, the eternal and the temporal. He 
used the concept of a stage either because he holds that each higher 
stage is constituted not by abolishing the lower but by subordinating 
it. He posited three stages: the Aesthetic, Ethical and Religious. The 
aesthetic stage can be exemplied in the poet who transmutes the 
world into an imaginary realm and in the romantic. The essential 
features of this stage are the absence of xed universal moral 
standards and of determinate religious faith as well as the presence of 
a desire to enjoy the whole range of emotive and sense experience. An 
individual can exist inasmuch as he chooses to be an aesthetic man. 
Although existence can be achieved at this level, Kierkegaard injects 
the element of quality into the matter of existence. Ultimately, 

22“authentic existence” cannot be achieved at this level.
 The ethical stage constitutes the sphere of duty, of universal 
rules, of unconscious demands and tasks. Like Socrates, whom 
Kierkegaard considers to be the best and famous example of the 
ethical mode of existence, the ethical man, through the act of 
choosing, learns to know himself by turning towards the inwardness 
of his own self and thus reaches a decision to live a life that has 
meaning. The act of choosing is essentially a proper and stringent 

23expression of the ethical.  Inasmuch as the ethical stage is an 
improvement on the aesthetic stage, it is nevertheless still 

21 thS. Stumpf,  Philosophy: History and Problems (4  ed), New York: Mcgraw-Hill 
Publishing Co., 1971, 113-114. 
22Ibid. 481. 
23Robert, Bretall, ed. Either/Or in a Kierkegaard Anthology, New York: The 
Modern Library, 1946, 105.

42 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



incomplete. The individual realizes that he is incapable of fullling 
the moral law, and becomes conscious of his guilt through 
deliberately going against the law. This guilt or the sense of sin 
becomes the dialectic element, the anti-thesis, which is that of 
estrangement or alienation from God which he belongs and from 

24
whom he must derive strength.  With sorrow in his heart, the ethical 
man asks divine forgiveness and it is at this point that he moves onto 
the religious stage.
 Kierkegaard believes that the religious sphere is an 
embodiment of a truly authentic existence. It is seen as the 
culminating point of existential dialectic for in it can be found and 
obtained the authentic approach to life that has been so desired by the 
individual in both the aesthetic and ethical spheres. This religious 
stage is by acknowledging God, openly confessing one's sinfulness, 
choosing oneself as guilty and hoping for divine forgiveness. In this 
stage, an individual makes a choice, a personal commitment, which 
involves a passionate, non-rational “leap of faith.”  Kierkegaard 
makes a distinction between two forms of the religious stage: 
Religiousness A and Religiousness B. The former, which is not 
specically Christian religiousness, can exist in paganism and in 
Christianity; that is, it can be the religiousness of everyone who is not 
decisively Christian, whether he be baptized or not. While the latter is 
precisely Christian religiousness, is discriminative, selective, 
polemical and is closely dened by sin consciousness, the possibility 

25of offence and the smart of sympathy.
 
Kierkegaardian Perspective on Suffering
As a prelude to Kierkegaard's discourse on suffering, it would be 
necessary to point out that for Kierkegaard, the task of the individual 
consists in the simultaneous maintenance of an absolute relationship 
to the absolute telos and a relative relationship to relative ends. 
Kierkegaard says that in order for the individual to be able to relate 

24Stumpf, Op.Cit., 481, 482.
25F. J. Lescoe, Existentialism: With or Without God, New York: The Society of St. 
Paul, 1974,  4.

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 43



absolutely to the absolute telos, he must begin by exercising himself 
in the absolute relationship through renunciation. This renunciation 
involves freeing oneself from relative ends. And it is when the 
individual is able to free himself from relative ends that he can now 
begin to think of the ideal task, which is the simultaneous 
maintenance of an absolute relationship to the absolute and a relative 

26relationship to the relative.
 Kierkegaard would say that even when the individual has 
brought his immediacy to subjection, he is still in existence, and is 
thereby prevented from expressing absolutely the absolute 
relationship to an absolute telos. Unlike aesthetic pathos, which 
keeps itself at a distance from existence, or is in existence in a state of 
illusion, existential pathos dedicates itself more and more profoundly 
to the task of existing. It is able to penetrate all illusions, through the 
consciousness of what existence is, thereby becoming more and more 
concrete through reconstructing existence in action.

Suffering as the Essential Expression for Existential Pathos 
Kierkegaard says that action may be seen as the precise opposite of 
suffering, which is the essential expression for existential pathos – 
the pathos of action. This is apparently the case as is evident from the 
fact that the positive is the index of the negative: “A revelation is 
signalized by mystery, happiness by suffering, the certainty of faith 
by uncertainty, the ease of the paradoxical – religious life by its 

27difculty, the truth by absurdity …”.  
 For Kierkegaard, the distinguishing mark of religious action, 
which is directed towards eternal happiness, is suffering. Action here 
does not mean outward activity for this does not transform the 
individual's own existence. Rather, it can transform existence in the 
sense of an emperor conquering the world and enslaving people. But 
Kierkegaard would say that such action is aesthetic pathos. The 
aesthetic individual transforms the world while he himself remains 
untransformed. This is because he has the dialectical outside of him 

26Kierkegaard, Postcript,  386.
27Ibid., 387.

44 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



instead of within him. Kierkegaard says that suffering is the highest 
action in inwardness. This is because “essential existential pathos is 
essentially related to existence; and to exist essentially is inwardness, 

28and action in inwardness is suffering.
 Suffering, which is essentially the expression of existential 
pathos, is rooted in the fact that the individual is from his happiness. 
But this also signies that he is in relationship to this happiness and 

29
consequently, to be without suffering is to be without religion.  It 
should be pointed out that Kierkegaard does not teach that all 
suffering is religious although all suffering may become religious by 
being incorporated into a God-relationship. If suffering ceases, the 
religious life is also abolished for all religious life involves suffering. 
Swenson says that this suffering is due to the necessity of a 
reformation of the individual for religious suffering is the sign of 
transformation in the personality of the individual by which it is in the 
process of becoming better. The individual needs the transforming 

30 
discipline of suffering for its imperfection is at the bottom of guilt.
From what Swenson says, guilt lies at the bottom of our suffering. 
According to Garelick, the suffering of the subjective individual lies 
in the fact that “he carries with him at all times in his search for eternal 
happiness, the awareness of the disproportion he has created between 
his existence and the demands of subjectivity.” The individual suffers 
because he bears the burden of guilt consciousness as a consequence 

31
of his guilt consciousness.
 Kierkegaard says that in transforming his entire existence, 
which is a dying away from immediacy, the religious individual 
would feel himself conned within the absolute conception of God; 
for the absolute conception of God consists in having it at every 
moment. The religious individual is so conned since absoluteness is 
not directly the element of a nite creature. Kierkegaard says that 
inasmuch as the conception of God is the absolute help, it is also the 

28Ibid., 388.
29Ibid., 406.
30Swenson, op.cit., 174.
31H. M. Garelick, The Anti-Christianity of Kierkegaard, The Hague: Martinus 
Nijhoff, 1965, 26.

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 45



only help, which is also capable of revealing to man his own 
helplessness. The religious man, who lies in the nite as a helpless 
child, desires to hold fast to the conception of God and it is this that 
annihilates him. He desires to do everything he can to express this 
religious absoluteness, but as it were, he is unable to make the “nite 

32
commensurable therefore.”
 Kierkegaard says that although there is this absolute 
difference between God and man, the principle of equality in love 
expresses itself by means of the absolute difference whose form is 
humility – the humility that frankly admits its human lowliness with 
humble cheerfulness before God, trusting that God knows all this 
better than himself. It is here that the profound suffering of true 
religiosity lies – the deepest and unthinkable, namely, to stand related 
to God in an absolutely decisive manner, and be unable to nd any 
decisive expression for this. This inability is rooted in the necessary 
relativity of the most decisive expression, in its being too much 
because it involves a certain presumptuousness against other men 

33and too little because it is a worldly expression.

Suffering as Dying from Immediacy
Kierkegaard says that immediacy is fortune; for there is no 
contradiction in the immediate consciousness. The view of life 
natural to immediacy is one based on fortune and as such, the 
immediate individual is essentially seen as a fortunate one. The 
contradiction comes from without and takes the form of misfortune. 
The immediate individual is unable to understand misfortune. This is 
because he never becomes dialectical in himself. Due to his inability 
to grasp misfortune, the individual may despair; for the immediate 
individual expects the difculty to stop since it is a foreign element. 
Kierkegaard says that the despair of the individual, which comes 
because the difculty does not cease, makes the transition to another 
understanding of misfortune possible for the individual's immediacy 
ceases as a result of despair. Unlike the immediate individual who 

32Kierkegaard, Postcript, 431-432.
33Ibid., 439.

46 |    Ekpoma Review, Volume. 7, 2020   



lacks the dialectical in himself, the inwardness that is the core of the 
ethical and ethico-religious individual understands suffering as 
something essential. For the aesthetic (immediate) individual 
“suffering must come from without, be visible, not having its origin 

34
and expression in the individual himself.”  But the religious 
individual has suffering constantly with him. Just as the immediate 
individual requires fortune, the religious individual requires 
suffering and has it even in the absence of external misfortune. It is 
not misfortune that the religious individual requires for that would 
mean that the relationship would be aesthetic and he would remain 
essentially undialectical in himself.
 According to Kierkegaard, just as immediacy pins its faith to 
fortune, the religious man believes that it is precisely in suffering that 
life is to be found. Immediacy expires in suffering and it is in 
suffering that the religious man begins to breathe; the religious man 
comes to life in suffering. In other words, all men are sufferers. But 
the problem is to share fully in the suffering, and not to get away from 
misfortune. Sharing fully in suffering is not by plunging oneself into 

35it but by discovering that it is there.  For Kierkegaard, religiosity is 
inwardness, which is the “relationship of the individual to himself 
before God, his reection into himself.” And it is from this that 
suffering derives, this being the ground of its essential pertinence to 
the religious life such that its absence means the absence of 
religiosity. This is why Kierkegaard approves of Pascal's statement 
which he says came out of Pascal's own experience as a Christian, 
that “Suffering is the natural state of the Christian just as health is that 

36
of the 'natural' man.”  And as such, religiosity is not to serve as a 
place of refuge from suffering.

34Kierkegaard, Stages on Life’s Way, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 
1945),  413.
35Kierkegaard, Postcript, 391.
36Kierkegaard, Stages…, 416.

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 47



Suffering as the Mark of the Relationship of the Exister to the 
Absolute Telos
Kierkegaard asks the question: 

Is it possible for an existing individual, at the same that he 
expresses precisely by means of suffering his relationship 
to an eternal happiness as the absolute telos, is it possible 
for him at the same time, on the basis of his knowledge 
about this relationship, to place himself beyond the 

37suffering?

He says that in such a case, it is not suffering, which is the essential 
expression for the relationship, but the rejoicing, naturally not a 
direct joy, but a joy grounded in the consciousness that the suffering 
signies the relationship.
 In discussing which was the highest (that is, either suffering 
or joy as the essential expression for the relationship), Kierkegaard 
says that although there is no suffering in the eternal happiness itself, 
a relationship with the absolute telos, which is established by an 
existing individual, rightly expresses itself through suffering. If an 
individual were able to elevate himself above the suffering, knowing 
that it means the relationship, then he would also be able to transform 
his status from that of an existing individual to that of an eternal 
being, which for Kierkegaard, is impossible. Since it is impossible, 
the individual nds himself again in the situation of suffering, 
because the knowledge that suffering means the relationship with the 
absolute telos must be held fast in the medium of existence. The 
perfection of that individual's joy would fail of being complete and 
the pain of this circumstance is again the essential expression for the 

38relationship.
 Kierkegaard points out that when an individual is secure in 
his God-relationship and suffers only outwardly, that it is not 
religious suffering; for such suffering is subject to an aesthetic 

37Kierkegard, Postcript…, p. 404.
38Ibid., 405.

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dialectic, like misfortune to the immediate consciousness. The fact 
that an individual is without misfortune does not mean that he is 
without suffering if he is religious. An individual who suffers, cannot 
in his joy over the signicance of this suffering, as a mark of the 
relationship, transcend the suffering. This is because the suffering is 
rooted in the fact that he is separated from his happiness but also 
signies that he has a relationship to this happiness. Hence, to be 
without suffering is to be without religion. The religious individual is 
reected inward, is conscious of being existentially in the process of 
becoming and yet maintains a relationship to an eternal happiness. He 
says that if religious suffering ceased and the individual became 
secure, such that, he stands in relationship only to fortune and 
misfortune, then, he is an aesthetic person who has mistakenly 

39strayed into the religious sphere.

The Category of Anfechtung
According to Kierkegaard, there lies within the sphere of religious 
suffering, a special type of religious conict, which the Germans call 
Anfechtung. It is a type of temptation, which is within the sphere of 
the God-relationship. It ceases as soon as an individual fails to 
maintain a relationship with the absolute telos. He makes a 
distinction between temptation and Anfechtung. In temptation, it is 
the lower that tempts and allures while in Anfechtung, it is the higher 
that tempts and as if jealous of the individual, has to frighten him 
back. Temptation exists in the ethical sphere and constitutes the 
greatest danger when the ethical relationship to reality is at its 
maximum for the individual. Anfechtung, on the other hand, 
originates rst in the essentially religious sphere and occurs there 
only in the nal stage. As the intensity of the religiosity of the 
individual increases, Anfechtung increases in proportion too. This is 
because the individual has discovered the limit and Anfechtung 

40
expresses the reaction of the limit against the nite individual.  
According to Swenson:

39Ibid., 406.
40Ibid., 4

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 49



It is only when the individual has been developed 
ethically and religiously to the point where there can be 
some question of his submitting himself to the divine in 
order to be radically transformed by the discipline of the 
relationship that the paradoxical makes its appearance. In 
this conict, the individual's strength consists in his 

41weakness and his victory in his defeat.

For Kierkegaard, Anfechtung becomes an expression for the limit 
which the individual discovers the moment he is able to relate himself 
to the absolute. In this type of temptation, the individual is innocent 
but the suffering is however fearful. It is only the religious man who 
will be exposed to Anfechtung, for it is “precisely the reaction to the 
absolute expression for the absolute relationship.” An individual is 
tempted in his weak moments, while Anfechtung is the nemesis upon 
the strong moment in the absolute relationship. “Temptation 
therefore stands in connection with the individual's ethical habitus, 
while Anfechtung, on the contrary, is without continuity, and is the 

42opposition of the absolute itself.”
 Kierkegaard says that it is in this manner that religious 
suffering has its essential persistence and reality. Even in the most 
highly developed religious personality, who has succeeded in 
ghting his way through the suffering, which is involved in the dying 
away of immediacy, this suffering does not cease.  And it is only a 
rare individual who succeeds in ghting his way through to the end, 
or in overcoming it for long, for this conict is so persistent and 
relapse into it so frequent. That is why the religious individual must 
understand that he is nothing before God or to become wholly 
nothing and to exist before God. He requires and should constantly 
have this consciousness of impotence for if it were to cease, 

43
religiosity automatically ceases too.

41Swenson, op.cit., 184.
42Kierkegard, Postscript…, 411.
43Ibid., 412.

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Humor as an Incognito for Religiosity
Kierkegaard says that there are two boundary zones that correspond 
to the three spheres of existence: irony constitutes the boundary 
between the aesthetic and the ethical; humor, as the boundary that 
separates the ethical from the religious. When a religious individual, 
a knight of hidden inwardness, is set in the medium of existence, there 
emerges a contradiction in relating himself to the environment. This 
contradiction consists in the fact that with all this inwardness hidden 
within him, with his pregnancy of suffering and blessing in his soul, 
his appearance is exactly like that of other men. He looks like other 
men despite the fact that his inwardness is concealed. There is 
something comical here for where there is a contradiction there the 
comical is present. This comical aspect exists, not for others, but for 
the religious individual himself, when humor is his incognito, that is, 

44he uses it as a disguise.
 The religious individual sets up a screen between himself and 
men, in order to safeguard and insure the inwardness of his suffering 
and his God-relationship, lest he be infected with worldliness. He 
does this because he feels compelled by the environment to do what 
the dialectical process of producing inwardness demands of him. For 
Kierkegaard, as long as conict and suffering persist in his 
inwardness, the religious individual will not succeed in wholly 
concealing it. But he will not express himself directly and he will 
negatively prevent such a direct expression with the assistance of the 
humoristic. An observer who goes out to discover the religious 
individual would follow the rule of making everyone in whom he 
found humoristic, the object of his attention. But he may be deceived 

45
for a religious individual is only a humorist in outward appearance.
 Kierkegaard points out that a humorist presents the closest 
approximation to the religious individual and as such, he also has an 
essential conception of the suffering in which life is involved. He 
does not see existence as one thing, and fortune and misfortune as 
something happening to the existing individual, but exists so that 

44Ibid., 412.
45Ibid., 451.

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 51



suffering is for him relevant to existence. The humorist comprehends 
suffering as relevant to existence, but he does not comprehend the 
signicance of suffering itself; he understands that it belongs to 
existence but does not understand its signicance except through the 
principle that suffering belongs. It is at this point that the humorist 
differs from the religious individual. The humorist and the religious 
individual apprehend suffering in intimate conjunction with 
existence; but while the humorist revokes its essential signicance 
for the existing individual, the religious individual sees suffering as 

46essential for the pathetic relationship to an eternal happiness.
 The humorist constantly sets the God-idea into conjunction 
with other things and evokes the contradiction. But in terms of 
religious passion, he does not maintain a relationship to God. Instead, 
he transforms himself into a jesting and yet profound exchange-
centre for all these transactions, but he does not himself stand related 
to God. The religious man, on the other hand, does the same as the 
humorist, that is, he places the God-idea side by side with everything 
and sees the contradiction, but he is related to God in his inmost 
consciousness. Religiosity with humor as its incognito is a synthesis 
of absolute religious passion – the inwardness being dialectically 
produced – with a maturity of spirit, which withdraws the religiosity 
away from all externality back into inwardness, where again it is 

47
absolute religious passion (Kierkegaard Postscript 452).
 
Relevance of Kierkegaard's Positive Idea of Suffering
This essay has attempted to present the basic issues on suffering by 
Kierkegaard. For Kierkegaard, suffering is the essential expression 
of the existential pathos which is essentially related to existence; and 
to exist essentially is inwardness, and action in inwardness is 
suffering which a religious individual understands as something 
essential. This suffering is rooted in the fact that the religious 
individual is separated from his happiness and is conned within the 
absolute conception of God. He also says that suffering is a dying 

46Ibid., 396, 404.
47Ibid., 452.

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away from immediacy in which the religious individual, who is 
reected inward and is conscious of being existentially in the process 
of becoming, sustains a relationship to an eternal happiness, and the 
sign of this relationship is suffering, which is its essential expression. 
Kierkegaard also points out that there is a higher sphere of suffering 
called Anfechtung, which is precisely the reaction to the absolute 
relationship and that the religious individual uses humor as his 
incognito in order to safeguard and insure the inwardness of his 
suffering and his God-relationship.
 Kierkegaard, in his thoughts, has certainly pointed out the 
consequence of trying to exist authentically and what suffering 
should be not only to the Christian but any person who wants to live 
religiously. However, there are some inconsistencies in his thoughts. 
Firstly, for Kierkegaard, the humorist, who lies in the boundary 
between the ethical and religious sphere, apprehends suffering as 
something essential, and belonging to existence but does not 
understand its signicance. Although, the suffering Kierkegaard 
talks about is essentially inner suffering, which the religious man 
always has with him whether he suffers from without or not, he seems 
to refer to suffering from without (fortune and misfortune) when 
discussing about the humorist who presents the closest 
approximation to the religious. He does not seem to be consistent 
between suffering that belongs to inwardness and external suffering 
even though he claims to refer to the suffering that comes with 
inwardness. It is important to note that Kierkegaard does not deny the 
fact that the religious individual could suffer from without. But for 
him, the suffering that comes with inwardness is more important for it 
is a sign of the God-relationship. 
 The main problem in Kierkegaard's view on suffering is his 
over-emphasis on subjectivity to the detriment of interpersonal 
relations. For Kierkegaard, subjectivity is suffering. But the problem 
with subjectivity is that when taken to its logical conclusion, it denies 
objectivity. If subjectivity is suffering, then, suffering is reduced to a 
personal level – to the 'I', such that neither suffering in others nor the 
fact that humanity suffers is acknowledged. According to Garelick, 
“subjectivity cannot allow a fraternity of subjectivists to gain 

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 53



inspiration from shared experiences.”  Brotherhood may be a sign of 
48 

lack of subjectivity for in subjectivity, a man has to do with himself.
Macquarrie says that this is the substance of Martin Buber's critique 
of Kierkegaard. Buber (and some Christian theologians) disagree 
with Kierkegaard saying whether we relate to God by turning from 
the other person or do we relate to God precisely by turning toward 
the other and nding the 'eternal Thou' through the nite? As 
Macquarrie points out, a fruitful way to God is through the relation to 
other persons and through involvement in the life of the human 

49community.
 In spite of this limitation, Kierkegaard's view on suffering is 
of great importance to man and particularly, in our contemporary 
society where mediocrity reigns and suffering abounds; where the 
religious attitude (especially the Christian attitude) to suffering is 
obviously disowned and vigorously denied by the world in which 
pleasure and comfort is absolutised. It is important to point out that 
apart from the pain and suffering caused by diseases, earthquakes, 
ood, drought and natural disasters which built into the structure of 
the world itself, much of human suffering is traceable to human 
wrong doing – man's inhumanity to man. All humans to a certain 
extent endure agonies of loneliness, frustration and emotional and 
spiritual starvation. These pains are somehow connected to failures in 
love. The essential sadness of pain is such that it not only magnetizes 
the focus of our attention, but it also preoccupies us with ourselves 
and consequently, such self –preoccupation is an absolute obstacle to 
a life of love and inwardness. People then turn to religion as they try 
to nd meaning in their lives in the midst of so much suffering and as 
a way of eeing from their pains believing that through religion, their 
sufferings will cease. The numerous prayer houses and churches are 
testimonies to this. Obviously, what obtains today is an external type 
of religiosity.
 Kierkegaard's thoughts are relevant in our situation in making 
us understand that religion is not to serve as an escape from suffering. 

48Garelick, op.cit., 24.
49Macquarrie, Existentialism, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd, 1972, 83-84. 

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We would approach it from three perspectives: suffering from within, 
which is essentially Kierkegaard's position, accepting suffering from 
beyond and suffering with others, which is part of the critique against 
Kierkegaard. As Aquinas is said to have baptized Aristotle's 
philosophy in the sense that Aristotle didn't know the Christian God, 
so we would do to Kierkegaard's view on suffering by extending 
inward suffering to suffering with others.
 From the perspective of suffering from within, the religious 
individual understands suffering as something essential for it is the 
highest action in inwardness, which is the relationship of the 
individual to himself before God who is his reection into himself.  
Therefore, complete inwardness, which is the mark of the religious 
stage, has suffering as its criterion. The going into oneself is marked 
by suffering for interiorization is a struggle, an interrupted becoming 

50which is marked by qualitative leaps and crises.
 Unfortunately, not many people are willing to face the 
struggle of the interior life and undergo the pain of inwardness 
through which a person realizes himself. The greatest fear of people is 
not something external but themselves. People are afraid of going 
down deep into themselves, not only because of the suffering and 
struggle involved, but because of what they will nd there. That is 
why John Powell says that “the longest journey is the journey 
inward” and not many people are willing to undertake this long 
journey of inwardness. This accounts for the increasing mediocrity in 
life, depression, emotional imbalance and so on because people lack 
the courage and will to embark joyfully upon the challenges of life of 

51 
which journeying into oneself is one. Hence, the Socratic maxim: 
the unreected life is not worth living. Maintaining an in-depth 
relationship with the Absolute necessarily involves purgation and it is 
only when a person realizes himself through this interior struggle that 
he/she begins to live a true life which involves active acceptance of 

52
the human condition with its demands for creative perfection.

50Regis, Jolivet, Introduction to Kierkegaard, New York: P. J. Kennedy & Sons, 
1963,  118. 
51Ignace, Lepp, The Challenges of Life, New York: Society of St. Paul, 1969,  11.
52Ibid., 9.

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 55



Active acceptance of the human condition means accepting suffering 
with a conscious intentionality from the perspective of suffering from 
beyond. Living a true life means actively accepting pain and 
suffering. Bernard Lonergan distinguishes between the different 
levels of consciousness and intentionality. There is the empirical 
level in which we sense, perceive, feel; the intellectual level in which 
we inquire to understand, express what we have understood and 
workout presuppositions and implications of our expression; rational 
level in which we reect, marshal the evidence, pass judgement on 
the truth or falsity, certainty or probability of a statement; and 
responsible level on which we are concerned with ourselves, our own 
operations,, goals and so deliberate on possible courses of action, 
evaluate them and put our decisions into actions. According to 
Lonergan, inasmuch as operations on these four levels are intentional 
and conscious, intentionality and consciousness differ from level to 
level. What is conscious can be intended and it is a fourfold matter to 
apply the operations as intentional to the operations of the conscious: 
one has to experience one's experiencing, understanding, judging and 
deciding; one has to understand the unity and relations of one's 
experienced experiencing, understanding, judging and deciding; one 
has to afrm the reality of one's experienced and understood 
experiencing, understanding, judging and deciding; and one decides 
to operate in accord with the norms immanent in the spontaneous 
relatedness of one's experienced, understood, afrmed experiencing, 

53 understanding, judging and deciding.
 In applying this to suffering and pain, there is rst the 
experience of one's suffering. One seeks to understand the cause of 
his suffering and the meaning though it may be beyond his 
understanding. One afrms in reality that he/she is passing through 
suffering rather than deny it. And one responsibly accepts his 
suffering. In applying the operations as intentional to these 
operations as conscious, one experiences one's experiencing, 
understanding, judging and decision on suffering; one tries to 
understand the unity and relations of one's experienced experiencing, 

53Bernard, Lonergan, Method in Theology, New York: Herder and Herder, 1972,  9.

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understanding, judging and decision on suffering; one afrms the 
reality of one's experienced and understood experiencing, 
understanding, judging and decision on suffering; and one decides to 
operate in accord with the norms immanent in the spontaneous 
relatedness of one's experienced, understood, afrmed experiencing, 
understanding, judging and decision on suffering. This constitutes an 
active acceptance of the human condition (our limitations, failures, 
pains and sufferings). It is in this active acceptance of the human 
condition that one begins to live a true life. But this is not possible 
without inwardness, which understands suffering as essential. For it 
is only a person who has achieved interiority that can fully face the 
exigencies of human existence.
 From the perspective of suffering with others, it is only a 
person who has not only journeyed inward and discovered himself, 
but has experienced pain and suffering, that can reach out to others in 
their pain. The discovery of our limitations and helplessness enables 
us to understand the limitations and helplessness of others – it pushes 
us out of our comfort zones to truly share with others in their pain. It is 
this sharing of experiences that leads to growth. A truly religious 
person dedicated himself to the task before him/her without seeking 
to avoid the inevitable struggle and such acceptance of “existential 
risk forces man to emerge from his egotistic and narcissistic 

54absorption in his own private world.”  Such a person who has 
experienced the pain of long-suffering understands others in similar 
positions, is sensitive to their problems and doubts that come from 
experiencing suffering. Such attitude and disposition is necessary in 
our society of today that is plagued by 'man's inhumanity to man'.

 
Conclusion
From the foregoing, suffering is part of human existence and is an 
essential expression of the religious state, that is, a truly religious 
individual sees suffering as something essential. 
 Kierkegaard has made an invaluable contribution to the 
problem of suffering. His view is of great importance in our world 

54Lepp, op.cit., 44.

Exploring the Theme of Suffering in Soren ...  | 57



where the religious attitude, especially the Christian attitude is 
disowned and vigorously denied by the world we live in. his view is 
also of practical value to various religions especially the Christian 
religion that maintaining a relationship with the Absolute requires 
whole and undivided attention and such a relationship necessarily 
entails suffering. The religious person is one who is reected inward 
and such a person understands suffering as essential and is thus ready 
to confront it in all its ramications. 
 Suffering is an essential part of human existence such that it 
could be said that to be human is to suffer. Suffering is the means 
through which the highest nature of man is to be disciplined and 
developed. The works of the greatest of men had been done amidst 
suffering, trial and difculty. That character, in its highest forms, is 
disciplined by trial and “made perfect through suffering” is 

55
something that cannot be denied.  A wholesome attitude is thus 
necessary to confront pain and suffering and according to 
Kierkegaard, it is the religious attitude, in which a man is reected 
inward, and relates absolutely with the absolute and sees suffering as 
essential, that is needed to face the pain of human existence and to 
embark joyfully upon the challenges of life.

55S., Smiles, Character, (Mumbai: The Bombay Saint Paul Society, 1987),  157 & 
159.

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